Times are tough, and young Canadians are feeling the brunt of it. If you are under 34, you are more likely to put off buying or renting a home, having children, and pursuing post-secondary education, due to the rising cost of living. You shouldn’t have to put your life on hold. If Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is elected, odds are we can expect more of the same – or worse.
Poilievre’s track record suggests he thinks essential needs like food and housing are a means to line his pockets and the pockets of the few, not the many.
Just look at his list of top donors, which is chock-full of wealthy real estate moguls who get their kicks taking advantage of renters. Not to mention the long list of lobbyists on the Conservative Party National Council, whose clients range from real estate corporations to private healthcare interests to oil and gas companies.
Jason Jogia is on this list. He is the co-founder and CEO of Avenue Living, one of the largest private real estate owner-operators in Western Canada. Avenue Living’s housing assets grew by almost 50% to $4.6 billion in 2022. That same year, the real estate giant hiked its rent prices by hundreds of dollars in places like Calgary. While Avenue Living’s pockets swelled, its renters paid the price. These people don’t care about your cost of living.
If Poilievre cared about making housing accessible to everyone, why would he vote against initiatives to make housing affordable and address Canada’s housing crisis in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2014 when Conservatives were in power? He did the same as a member of the official opposition in 2018 and 2019.
Poilievre was Housing Minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which allowed 800,000 affordable rental units to be sold off to corporate landlords and developers. He doesn’t plan on stopping there. Poilievre wants to scrap the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which would cut billions of dollars from housing construction and make it harder for municipalities to build more homes.
If you thought egg prices were bad now, what’s in store under Poilievre will seem like a bad yolk. Poilievre’s inner circle is made up of corporate grocery giant insiders like his top advisor, Jenni Byrne, whose day job involves lobbying for companies like Loblaw Companies Ltd. through her firm Jenni Byrne + Associates.
Loblaw was recently forced to pay $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit for conspiring with other companies to artificially raise the price of bread. Poilievre’s caucus chair Scott Reid has voted against a national school food program and serves on the board of Giant Tiger Stores, which was allegedly involved in the bread price fixing scandal. Poilievre himself has voted against lowering grocery prices.
If this is the company Poilievre keeps, who’s to say they will stop at bread?
News flash: they’re not. Poilievre, like a certain too-tanned American counterpart, is also keen to muzzle journalism and defund universities.
Inaccessible housing and inflated grocery prices are just the tip of the iceberg. A Canada led by Poilievre will put profits first, not people. Young people will only be able to dream about a future where they can have kids, pursue education, or own a home. It’s time we stop dreaming and start making choices that bring these dreams back into reach. Empty promises and cheap spray tans aren’t enough to fool Canadians. Let’s use the federal election to prove it.